“A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all women, men, and children. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick.”

“When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits – anything that kept me small. My judgement called it disloyal. Now I see it as self-loving.”

“More often than not, I notice that we’re afraid to lose our suffering because we’re afraid to lose our excuses.

It’s easier to hold on to pain as a reason for why we’re concealing our gifts, playing small, and not going after the kind of life we want to be living. But trust me on this: you are so much bigger than your suffering and pain.”

“You can’t always direct what happens to you and when, but, if you know what’s important to you overall and what you want to get out of life, you can have faith that, even if everything comes out of order and contradicts the particular visuals you have in mind, you will end up at the end of your life with the sense of satisfaction and fulfillment we all seek.”

“Accepting the reality that underlies all reality — that everything changes, nothing is fixed or permanent — helps you let go of how things have been or need to be. You can tolerate how things are and trust your capacities of response flexibility to change them if need be.”